From lwtcdi Sent Sun, Oct 11th 1998, 18:58
From lwtcdi Sent Sun, Oct 11th 1998, 18:58
While partaking in some correspondance with Irene, my mention of the new Squarepusher LP kind of turned a review, so I thought I'd post it here for the person who asked after one. Feel free to agree/disagree with me at your leisure, bearing in mind that it's stream of conciousness babbling and not trying to be informative/succinct/good like some other peoples (Lance! You are appreciated!). Enough! Here's the review: "Got the new Squarepusher LP on Friday. Looks like he's been on the acid again. If you thought his other LPs were kind of scatty then watch out, this is completely all over the place (the NME called it the most structured thing he's done, which doesn't fit at all with what I'm hearing but probably serves to show how different this LP will sound to different people). The style is similar throughout, but the tracks are fairly formless. It feels more lo-fi than most lo-fi bands (the instruments sound haphazardly miked up in a basement somewhere and the feel is raw and reminiscent of those old 30s-40s jazz recordings made on cylinders). Half the tracks are (on first listen) kind of semi-realised sonic scrapings. The rest sound a bit like Tortoise after someone spiked their drinks and contain at least some of the following: doomy hi-speed jazz drumming, the obligatory live bass, bits where the drums reverse or have some FX things put on them, people mumbling inaudiably in the background. On the whole not the smooth live jazz sound that I was expecting from what people had said beforehand, so people who thought his previous LPs were underproduced had better steer clear. Overally it has a tendancy to be a bit prog and up it's own arse (even more so that usual!!). Having said that to me it's pretty unique and one of those that will take a bit of growing into. So despite it being a "difficult" album I reckon I'll be listening to it quite a lot to see what reveals itself. And it makes suprisingly good background music, so far. In summary, it's not a *totally* unlistenable racket!" So there we go. Incidentally, does anyone else find it really annoying that it's called "Music Is Rotted One Note" rather than "Music is One Rotted Note"? Also, one question while I'm here - who is behind the "Clifford Gilberto Rhythm Combination" stuff on Ninja Tune? When I got the 12" (Deliver The Weird) it sounded exactly like Squarepusher on some tracks and Amon Tobin on others (hence the "Rhythm Combination?", but after hearing the LP I'm not so sure. Apologies if someone mentioned this before, but I've been off list for a while... Graham. PS To the guy who I met at the Rephlex/Mike Dred/DMX night at the Faversham pub in Leeds on Thursday, get in touch to discuss the finer points of the evening (Skam in Record Collector magazine - whatever next?!) or just to argue about who's going to review the whole thing for the benefit of IDM. Not me, not me!